{"id":21401,"date":"2011-02-02T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2011-02-02T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/?p=21401"},"modified":"2011-07-19T16:55:39","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T23:55:39","slug":"interview-with-erica-howton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/interview-with-erica-howton-21401.html","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Erica Howton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We love to interview members of our community. I was lucky enough to have a virtual sit-down with Erica Howton<\/a> \u2014 a curator who is extremely active.<\/p>\n

How has being a curator changed the way that you use Geni? Is it a substantial change in more ways than one? Any specific situation that being a curator changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a word: connectivity. I started out my tree in total isolation (a private, horizontal tree) and had great fun with it. Then I tip toed into the big tree. I connected to the rest of America. I tip toed a little more with “the collaboration pool.” Suddenly it’s “world history.” I joined the curatorial team, and it’s “current world” — not just its history.<\/p>\n

What is your pre-Geni background with genealogy? What, exactly, has changed since you’ve become an active Geni member?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are we including my father’s bed time stories about probable ancestors like John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster<\/a>? He currently shows as my 18th great grandfather in Geni. What exactly has changed is that we now have links – some of better quality than others, of course – to “somewhat prove” what we’ve always “known,” which are two very different issues.<\/p>\n

At another time in my life, I would go here on my lunch hour, and just read this<\/a>. Now, I am actively engaged in learning and building with a current focus on Colonial America.<\/p>\n

Do you have any specific profiles or project that are near and dear to your heart? Why are they so special to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part of the fun of Geni is that you can go “visit” profiles and see how they’re progressing. This is one of the first ones<\/a> that took my breath away as to the possibilities in Geni.<\/p>\n

As to Projects \u2014 I’ve been working, off and on, with a colleague curator, on an “Oldest Homes in ….” series, based on Wikipedia lists. The other day one of our collaborators asked, what about “Oldest Homes in New Hampshire? I have some great links …” So we said, “OK, let’s take a risk, and start our own list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you could change one thing about Geni, what would it be? Why do you feel that way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing about the application? The other day it must have been hit with a lot of network traffic and timed out, and that was annoying. So that would be the one thing I would change: always available.<\/p>\n

What is your favorite part of Geni as a genealogy tool? What does it offer to you that nothing else does?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think I already said it! Connectivity. That is unique, and a great, great pleasure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you’d like to see more community interviews, take a look at our Featured Guest section<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We love to interview members of our community. I was lucky enough to have a virtual sit-down with Erica Howton \u2014 a curator who is extremely active. How has being a curator changed the way that you use Geni? Is it a substantial change in more ways than one? Any specific situation that being a curator changed? In a word: connectivity. I started out my tree in total isolation (a private, horizontal tree) and had… Read the full story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[641,651],"class_list":["post-21401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","tag-erica-howton","tag-interview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64581,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21401\/revisions\/64581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}